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The framework of futility is revisited in this tediously complex science fiction film, closer to a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the classic Tron film from 1982, a film that was groundbreaking and courageously innovative for its day in a way that eludes this film and its forerunner Tron Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film almost awakens just once – when Evan Peters' character gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson's character playing his mum, in an old-fashioned bit of real-world action. This is a piece of tough love you might want to handing out to every producer engaged in this film, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee's role and Jodie Turner-Smith being made to look so uninspired.

Story Summary of The New Tron Film

The situation currently is that an evil AI corporation with the unsubtly gangster-ish name of Dillinger Corp has become a competitor to the VR company Encom Inc, originally set up in the 80s arcade-game era by genius trailblazer Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (initially founded by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger, played by David Warner) is led by the founder's annoyingly geeky grandson Julian (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create lucrative items such as indestructible soldiers and armored vehicles in the VR world and then export them into the real world using a kind of 3D printer.

The issue is that no matter how intimidating, these creations disintegrate after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has uncovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence algorithm” which can keep these things alive permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a very low-tech flashdrive. So the ghastly Julian deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can leave the VR world for twenty-nine minutes at a time but which, in the time-honoured way of androids, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he is commanded. Jodie Turner-Smith's performance plays Ares's stoic deputy Athena and poor Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in sage-like white garments, like a Poundshop Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the title – is played by Jared Leto with hipsterish long hair, beard and faintly all-knowing smile, touches that were perhaps created by typing the words “extremely annoying” into an artificial intelligence character generator. Nobody who recalls the 1990s television classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Mr Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and widely misinterpreted) humorous performance in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is consistently, unrelentingly awful in this film, although his performance isn't aided by a limp plot point which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “compassion” for Greta Lee's character and delegate all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus rendering her marginally more interesting. It is supposed to be charming when Ares says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Series Features and Overall Impact

Consistent with the franchise identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, adhering to the angular layout of classic video games (or even nightclubs); one even emits a death ray which cuts a cop car in half. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an in-car CD player.